Dangerous 'swatting' prank concerning law enforcement

2 years ago

BRADENTON, Fla. (970 WFLA) - There's a dangerous prank that is concerning law enforcement. It's called "swatting" and there was an incident in Bradenton over the weekend.

Bradenton Police Captain William Fowler says a computer hacker places a call to police from a different number, sending swat team members on a fake call.

“It has to be like hacker extraordinaire to do that and to be able to have their computer show our system ‘hey this is the phone number that it’s coming from’ is the victim’s phone number when it’s actually not,” Fowler said.

On Sunday, the Bradenton SWAT team showed up at a man’s house after they had gotten a call from his number that he had shot someone. They say the man was surprised to see police, who apologized for the raid.